Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Reality Bites: Meerkat Manor

Frank and I watch Meerkat Manor on the Discovery Channel. It's a show that follows the lives of meerkats in the Kalahari desert. Despite your stance on anthropomorphism, strangely the meerkats provide one of the most compelling hours of television around, if you can get around Discovery channel's signature "post-commercial recap" tendencies.

So, one of the most beloved meerkats, Flower, died in the Sept 28 show. For meerkat fans, this was very traumatic. Some people have questioned why the scientists did not "save" Flower when it was clear she was dying. Personally, unlike most reality TV, I'm thrilled that the filmmakers actually felt an obligation to not intervene, in order to let nature take it's course. To see this on a show geared for kids is a brave move -- maybe the "grown up" shows will take a hint?

ETA: Of course, I'm not suggesting that, for example, Survivor let contestants die! However, we all know that producers are influencing results to make for good television.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I won't hesitate to suggest it. :P Seriously though, how much you wanna bet that's EXACTLY what the majority of the viewing public would like to eventually see (or they do and just don't know it yet). What was the Stephen King story/bad Arnold movie? "The Running Man". Any day now...

chaipo said...

I guess so. On the other hand, I think audiences are getting bored by the reality genre. Look at big brother, which has always been a total waste of TV space.

But will there eventually be a "running man" show? I think you're right :)